by Brian Shane, USA TODAY

by Brian Shane, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Some of the soldiers who took part in the invasion of Normandy didn't have to fire a shot. Raymond Anderson was among them.

"A lot of the guys on the front lines took the brunt of it. Our unit didn't get it," says Anderson, 91, now a resident of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, D.C. "We kind of (were) backup troops farther down the line. I'm not a combat hero."

When the war came, Anderson hoped to get into the Navy, but one of his eyes wasn't sharp enough. The Army drafted him in November 1942. He was 21 years old. The Army and Civilian Conservation Corps trained him to be a cook, a baker and a mess sergeant. He also was trained to dismantle disabled tanks.

He was assigned to the 674th Quartermaster Salvage Collection Company and sent to Europe. He remembers the giant troop ship zigzagging across the Atlantic to avoid German submarines.

"We didn't know what was happening," Anderson says. "Everything was super secret - the Army's good at that. All our letters and everything were read by the lieutenant in charge of the mail. He cut out certain things if anybody wrote anything they shouldn't."

He recalls his unit filing onto Omaha Beach, weapons in hand, but "we didn't have to do any fighting at all. We were backup troops. The infantry took the real beating.

"Everybody was prepared to fight, at least partially," he adds. "It was an awful lot of activity. There was action all over the place. You never saw so many airplanes in the sky in your lifetime."

Anderson went on to have a 24-year career with the Army, mostly in cooking and baking. He also served in Germany, Japan, Korea and Thailand.

Anderson grew up during the Great Depression in the Dakotas. His father moved the family to Superior, Wis., to take a job as a shipyard welder.

"Work was very hard to come by back then," he says. "Sometimes people had to keep moving in order to survive."

He never married, though he says he had the chance two or three times. After leaving the Army, he lived in Milwaukee and became a full-time student under the GI Bill. He attended Milwaukee Technical College, studying food service. He pursued more advanced food service training in Minneapolis but went back to Superior to take care of his parents as they grew older.

In 1996, he moved to the Armed Services Retirement Home in Washington. He enjoys playing piano there in his free time.

"It's interesting, all the countries, and the people I got to meet. I don't regret a minute of it," he says. "I wish I could have done more for my country, though. I think every veteran would say that."